


Call My Name

by Starrie_Wolf



Series: Fic Exchanges [Starrie Wolf] [14]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Rescue Rukia arc, Your zanpakutou spirit as your daemon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4871044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My name is Kurosaki Ichigo. I'm fifteen years old. There's two things you should know: one, for as long as I can remember, I've been able to see ghosts; and two, I've never been able to hear the name of my own daemon."</p><p>[Fic is written in third person]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call My Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wicked_wyvern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked_wyvern/gifts).



> Couldn't resist when I saw "daemons" in the requests list, so.

Most people would have learnt their daemons’ names around the time they start primary school, and occasionally in middle school. Ichigo had begun high school, and he didn’t know the name of his own daemon. Barely anyone knew about it – his father, his sisters, Chad. It wasn’t polite to speak to another person’s daemon without permission, and Ichigo barely spoke himself.

That was just one of the things that made him different, made him stand out like a beacon of orange spikes in a sea of muted black and browns, a single lighthouse standing upon a deserted island.

Until the day a black-haired girl crashed into his room, a streak of silver darting around her like a cloud of white mist, and turned his world upside down. Until the day a man in a striped bucket hat stood over his prone body, his black cat perched on his shoulder, and took him in out of the rain.

~*~*~*~*~

“He’s a wolfdog, isn’t he?”

Ichigo opened his eyes at the sound of Urahara’s voice. Yoruichi was fastidiously washing a paw over in the corner, ignoring the other three occupants of the room in the kind of haughty manner only a cat could pull off.

“Yeah,” he agreed tiredly. Of course Urahara-san would be able to tell his daemon was no ordinary dog, not like well-meaning Tatsuki who kept pestering to know why his ‘dog’ rarely barked or wagged his tail, not like those jeering gangsters who all thought he was a delinquent just because his ‘dog’ had the tendency to respond with aggression.

Hybrid daemons were rare enough without everyone poking their noses into his business.

“I see.” To Ichigo’s surprise, Urahara then changed the subject. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to save Rukia.” He might only have known the other girl for a scant few months, but it was the first time in his life he felt like someone _understood_ him, like a boat docking upon the distant shores at long last. Like there might be an entire _world_ of people just like him.

For this, he owed Rukia far more than she would ever understand.

Urahara hummed. “There is a way to get your shinigami powers back,” he admitted. “But it will be dangerous. You might die.”

Ichigo shook his head. “I don’t care.” Anything, even potential death was preferable to spending the rest of his life always looking over his shoulder, _knowing_ that there were others in the world just like him but unable to find them.

He had never been a coward, and he wasn’t about to start now.

~*~*~*~*~

_And later, when he climbed out of the Shattered Shaft, shaking and clutching a bone-white mask in his hands –_

Urahara drew his sword, tossing the sheath aside carelessly. “Let me show you how shinigami _really_ fight. Let me tell you the name of my daemon.”

Ichigo’s eyes travelled to Yoruichi, who had hopped off the boulder where she’d been watching the proceedings and now sought shelter on a cliff much further away.

Urahara smiled, and Ichigo instinctively backed away a step, though he couldn’t have said why. “Actually, Yoruichi-san is not my daemon.” He raised his blade, letting it glint in the artificial light. “Awaken, Benihime!”

 _Oh_ , some small part of Ichigo breathed. Crimson light burst out of Urahara’s body, igniting the very air it touched, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, until the world was showered in scarlet-and-gold sparks.

The rest of him was too busy running for his life.

“How do you expect to defeat me, if you keep running away?”

Yoruichi was curled up on the cliff, looking completely bored by the proceedings as Urahara chased him around the training grounds, streaks of crimson energy carving out deep swathes of rock as easily as a knife through hot butter. His daemon attempted to join in the fight, only to be casually kicked away as though several dozen kilograms of wolfdog weighed no more than a feather.

“What is the name of your daemon?” demanded Urahara.

“I don’t know!” screamed back Ichigo.

_Can you not hear me still, Ichigo?_

“I –” spluttered Ichigo, tripping backwards as Benihime came too close to his torso for comfort. Urahara expertly swung it around, the blade slashing down so fast he could see its afterimage. His hands clenched on his own zanpakutō, the hilt digging into his fingers. How could he ever hope to rescue Rukia from an entire world’s worth of hostiles, if he couldn’t even defeat the enemy in front of his eyes?

_Call my name, Ichigo. My name is –_

“ _ZANGETSU!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Kurosaki Ichigo's daemon is a Czechoslovakian wolfdog, a highly intelligent species that has distinct behavioural differences from a normal dog or wolf.
> 
> Zanpakutou spirits can choose to manifest as daemons or live within the inner world of a shinigami, as shinigami will have sufficient reiatsu within them to support their daemons. This makes more sense for people with _gigantic_ or water-bound daemons, like Hitsugaya. Also, only shinigami will have mystical creatures as their daemons, though not all shinigami do.
> 
> I just thought Yoruichi would totally look as if she were Urahara's daemon in this 'verse, that's all.


End file.
